Reincarnated Hero System

“Would you like to accept some support magic?” Eliza asked.

Varek slowly raised his sword in a guarded stance, as did the other crewmen on the deck who were observing Zara’s interaction with Eliza.

Zara silently glanced at Eliza’s palm, and after a few seconds, she finally said, “Okay.”

At that response, Eliza placed a palm on Zara’s shoulder and spoke, “Grant Sextet Etheric Augmentation.”

Ether formed a sigil on Zara’s shoulder, and from that sigil, a thin light green film spread outward until it covered her entire body.

Eliza then explained, “Elemental Damage and Elemental Breach Increase. Water Elemental Boost, Magic Boost, and Magic Resistance Negation. It will last until the ether I’ve invested in that sigil is completely consumed.”

With that done, Eliza stepped back and moved behind Zara while speaking again. “Don’t bother thanking me. Helping you benefits me as well.”

As soon as she spoke, her body sank into Zara’s shadow like someone sinking into water, and a moment later, Kuro leapt into the shadow and disappeared within it.

“Boss,” Varek called out, his concern evident.

Zara turned her gaze back to the front of the ship, focusing on the streaks of magic shooting through the air and crashing into the rampaging monsters.

“Don’t bother. She clearly intends to use us for something, so there’s no problem if we use her as well. Order the ships on the left flank to pull back and switch with the second line. Send out the engineers for repairs.”

She moved into giving orders without hesitation, and Varek bowed lightly before turning and rushing off to relay them.

◇　◇　◇

It wasn’t long after Eliza left to join the medics on the second line of defence when suddenly, Zara’s flagship—no, the ocean itself—shook violently.

Tall waves rose high enough to reach the ship’s deck, and six massive pillars emerged from the waters, surrounding the vessel.

Alarms blared loudly as Zara turned her gaze to the pillars, each lined with countless suckers, limbs belonging to a certain type of invertebrate whose tentacles could swallow the ship whole.

Silently, she raised her right hand, placing it on her left shoulder and infusing it with magic, then coating it with ambient water law energy.

The instant the suckers around her flagship glowed with dark light, she swung her hand horizontally, releasing a flying slash of energy that severed all six tentacles at once.

Blood splashed as the limbs fell into the water, and a loud screech of pain echoed from behind the ship as the monster, undeterred by the loss of six of its limbs, swung its remaining three tentacles to drag the vessel down into the depths.

Varek immediately activated a skill, creating a massive wall of darkness to protect the ship long enough for Zara to close the distance to the giant octopus head rising from the ocean behind the vessel.

“Gale’s Wrath.”

She unleashed a powerful gust of wind that slammed into the monster, knocking it back and sending its body crashing into the water.

“Ocean’s Fury.”

A spear of pressurised water materialised in Zara’s right hand, and without hesitation, she hurled it directly at the monster’s head, the impact triggering an explosion of magic power that sent large waves crashing violently against the flagship.

A monstrous shriek echoed from below, and the ship nearly overturned from the aftermath of the spell, but the crewmen employed water magic to keep themselves afloat.

The flash of light from the explosion gradually dimmed, and the ship began to jolt again as the ocean’s surface bulged before giving way to a massive creature beneath.

As high waves formed over the sea, the colossal orange head of the Kraken that had attacked the ship emerged, a large hole blown through it.

Judging from the lingering magic power in the air, it had been undeniably killed by Zara’s attack.

Crewmen from both the flagship and the surrounding ships erupted in cheers, shouting praises of Zara’s name as she landed atop the monster’s head, but instead of revelling in the glory, Zara snapped her gaze around and bellowed, activating the passive ability of her Voice of the Drowned Unique Skill.

“Don’t let your guards down!” she commanded. “There’s more than one of them!”

Zara immediately plunged into the water, shooting beneath the ship in an instant, crossing several hundred metres in a single second before bursting from the water while dragging a giant tentacle that looked like it was twice the size of the ones that had just tried to sink her flagship moments earlier.

The sea monsters shrieked in fear and swam toward the flanks as Zara shot higher into the air, powerful gales boosting her ascent while she, using her limbs, ripped a nine-limbed colossus out of the ocean it called home.

“Krakens! Fire the armour-piercing rounds! Keep the other one busy while the Boss fights!”

Varek’s order had several ships directing their guns toward the water, where several other tentacles shot pressurised streams of black liquid into the sky, lancing toward the position where Zara dragged the Kraken through the air.

The powerful cannons unleashed their full firepower on the tentacles, knocking them off their intended path and sending them crashing into other aquatic monsters that were still trying to flee from the sea behemoths.

Meanwhile, Zara activated Gale’s Wrath, sending the body of the Kraken she’d pulled from the water flying across the sky, crashing down among a group of Level 600 sea monsters and scattering them in every direction.

She then activated Ocean’s Fury once more, along with her Abyssal Anchor and Crushing Abyss skills.

Abyssal Anchor summoned chains of water and darkness that locked the Kraken in place, while Crushing Abyss engulfed it with powerful pressurised waves of water to make sure it could not break free or attack.

Finally, using Ocean’s Fury, she charged another water lance, pressurising the water to its maximum potential before hurling the spear at the Kraken’s head, blowing a massive hole through it with a blast of water that could have sunk the islands of Zeraxes if it had hit directly.

Cold ice erupted from the point of impact, instantly freezing the Kraken’s corpse on the ocean, and Zara immediately turned her gaze toward the third Kraken that her fleet was keeping occupied with cannon fire.

It wasn’t taking much more than a few scratches, its Level 800 durability and vitality at play, but the attacks had explosive impact enough to push it back and prevent it from mounting a proper attack.

“Leviathan’s Blessing.”

Her support skill activated to boost her physical prowess, and she leapt off the frozen Kraken toward the third one.

Varek immediately ordered the ships to stop firing, and Zara weaved through the last of the cannon fire and landed on the dark brown Kraken’s head, ice spreading rapidly from her feet and encasing half its body in an instant.

The Kraken recoiled, breaking through her ice with its own magic and swinging its tentacles at her, forcing her to leap up into the air.

She inhaled deeply, then activated a skill that made many sailors mistake her for a siren in her younger years, screaming.

“HAAAAAAATTTT!!!!”

The powerful sonic wave slammed into the sea monster, knocking all its tentacles down to the water.

But just as she attempted to use Ocean’s Fury to create a vortex around it, three other tentacles shot out from behind her, racing toward her back at hypersonic speed.

“!”

Zara immediately turned toward them, but faster than she could condense law energy to form a defensive barrier, a flash of grey light erupted and the tentacles were instantly riddled with holes, reduced to shredded pieces of flesh that collapsed weakly onto the water.

“This…Leoniel?”

Zara shifted her gaze toward Zera, where Leoniel stood atop her fortress’s roof, lowering his right hand as the grey Tier-5 Earth Magic Circle he had just used dissipated into the air.

She refocused on the Kraken in front of her, trusting Leoniel to keep the one behind her occupied long enough for her to finish off the third.

Indeed, the tentacles Leoniel had destroyed weren’t from the Kraken she was battling, but from a fourth.

The fourth Kraken, also dark brown in colour, erupted from the water with a shriek, but before Leoniel could gather his magic power for another long-range spell, the skies brightened.

A loud rumble of thunder echoed across the entire archipelago as golden light poured through gaps in the dark night clouds.

Eliza’s earlier words rang in Zara’s mind, and she immediately looked up at the skies just as a voice echoed, [Pseudo-Authority of Lightning: Arc Flash.]

Blazing bolts of lightning descended from the heavens, striking toward the krakens on the water’s surface, including the one Zara was fighting and the one behind her that Leoniel had been about to target.

Both of them were struck by the powerful lightning, electric currents racing down their tentacles and coursing through their bodies, shocking them so intensely that they released agonised shrieks.

The lightning damaged both their physical bodies and their souls, and after dealing that damage, it leapt from their bodies, racing across the water and latching onto other sea monsters.

Every sea monster Level 600 and below within a kilometre radius died instantly as the lightning spread outward, its range and intensity diminishing the farther it travelled until it finally faded.

Lightly hovering in the skies was a woman with black hair and golden eyes, wearing a beautiful dress, a crown floating above her head with several stones radiating different elemental law energies, and a floating stole around her neck.

The woman sensed Zara looking at her and turned in Zara’s direction, then immediately raised an eyebrow and said, [Huh, a siren’s descendant? And here I thought there weren’t any of you left on this planet.]